On the 4th of August 2022, Fox was pardoned by the Governor General of St. Kitts and Nevis after serving 25 years and is now a free man living in the UK.
Gary Strydom speaks out in support of Bertil Fox
Bertil and Leyoca had been going together for two years when she broke off the relationship last summer. In late August, The Observer of St. Kitts-Nevis reported, Bertil had finished doing a cycle of injectable steroids when he took off for England, leaving Leyoca with the keys to his house. He reportedly called her twice from London, trying to win her back, but by the time he returned to St. Kitts, on Friday, Sept. 26, she had taken up with another man. Fox testified at his trial that he had discovered upon his return that his gun and bullets and the pouch in which he carried them were missing from his house. He said that on Monday, Sept. 29, he went to the dress shop to retrieve the items. (Contradicting that testimony, Tross later told SI that he saw Fox wearing the gun pouch on his waist on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.)
Fox testified that when he arrived at the shop, Leyoca greeted him, led him inside and told him she had given the gun to Violet “for safekeeping.” Fox said that Violet approached him with the pouch in one hand and the gun in the other, held them above her head and said, teasingly, “These what you want? These what you want?” As Violet approached him, Fox said, she pushed him with the hand carrying the gun, and he grabbed it. In the struggle, he said, the gun went off and Leyoca was shot. (Curiously, she was found lying outside on the veranda, shot in the back.) As he continued to struggle with Violet, Fox said, the gun went off a second time, and she fell. He then fled in his car to Tross’s office, he says, where he told Tross, “Leyoca and her mother just got shot.” Tross, sitting behind Fox while he was testifying, shook his head at that. Tross had testified that Fox had said to him, “I just shot Leyoca and Violet.” A witness who heard the conversation, Leon Issac, Tross’s assistant, corroborated Tross’s version.
Sports Illustrated
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